


Unannounced in the Middle of the Night

by batss



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 03:30:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4004182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batss/pseuds/batss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex pollen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning! The basic premise of this fic is they've been drugged and are unable to resist each other. The consent is a little dubious as a result.
> 
> Title from Mouthful of Forevers, by Clementine von Radics.

Shaw wakes up in a motel room. She’s dressed in the clothes she remembers putting on that morning. The quality of the light that creeps around the cheap curtains suggests it’s shortly after sunrise, but Shaw doesn’t immediately know if she’s lost just one day or more. There’s a grogginess to her head and a weariness in her body that makes Shaw suspect instantly that she’s been drugged.

 

She examines the feeling in her body for a few moments and tries to remember something, anything at all. She doesn’t remember an abduction, and while her whole body feels sluggish there’s no pronounced ache in her head or anything that suggests that she was knocked out. Shaw moves to examine her surroundings then, and notices Root.

 

It’s alarming, that she woke up on a bed and lay there for a minute before noticing there was someone beside her. Her observation skills are highly trained and well honed. Shaw reclassifies the likelihood of her being drugged from high to almost certain.

 

It’s also alarming because now that Shaw has seen her, her every sense is focused on Root’s unconscious form beside her. She looks deeply asleep, but Shaw doesn’t dare touch her anyway as she scans Root for injuries that might explain what has happened. Root is lying on her side, shoulders caved inwards and her hands gently intertwined with each other in front of her face. After so long seeing Root looking maniacal in her zealotry, worried, or smug, Root’s expressionless face looks almost unfamiliar. There’s no provocation in her features, no reaction Root’s trying to instill, so Shaw just looks. Root’s so _pretty_. There is a tight feeling in Shaw’s chest.

 

Root’s nail-polish is black again. The last time Shaw saw her, she was undercover in an office with a demure pantsuit, French-tipped nails, and her hair in a bun. This looks more like the Root she knows. Her hair is loose, and pushed back from her face except for a few strands that have escaped and fall artfully across her cheek. Shaw can see the beginning of the scar behind Root’s ear. There’re no markings on her wrist from zip ties or any other type of restraint, just like Shaw.

 

Root is dressed in jeans and a knit top, and like Shaw is still wearing shoes. They are both lying on top of the sheets, and it seems a lot like they were placed here together, except for the way Root is positioned. Perhaps Root fell asleep herself and wasn’t brought into the room unconscious, or woke up at some point to reposition herself. That would mean she had less of a dose of the sedative, which seems suspicious. Shaw notices the temperature of the room, and the insistent white noise of the air-conditioning, and allows that perhaps Root had reacted to the cold and curled into herself for warmth.

 

Shaw is unarmed. She remembers the jacket she was wearing the previous morning, and the gun she had stashed in its pocket, as well as her backup in her purse. She sits up, and feels inside her boot for the knife she often keeps there, and it’s missing.

 

Shaw looks at Root again, anxious. If Root drugged her, and disarmed her, and brought her to this motel room, why would she then fall asleep beside her without restraining her? No, Shaw suspects that Root is as much of a target as she is.

 

Perhaps in response to Shaw sitting up and shifting her weight on the mattress, Root is beginning to stir. Shaw watches. She wonders if she should find something with which to arm herself anyway, just in case. There is nothing immediately available. The bedside tables on either side are both bare. But Shaw takes a breath, and steadies herself, and remembers her previous conclusion that Root isn’t to blame, and the sense of trust Root has encouraged Shaw to have in her, and ultimately earned. Root’s face crumples as she awakens, and she buries her face in the duvet, her hair falling forward like a curtain. Shaw knows the moment Root wakes up properly, because Root’s whole body freezes for maybe a second. And then Root sits up.

 

“Where are we?” Root asks immediately, her face searching and confused. Shaw’s stomach drops a little, because she was expecting something lewd or suggestive about them waking up together, and now this means they’re definitely in trouble. Shaw doesn’t say anything, but it doesn’t seem like Root is talking to the Machine.

“I don’t know,” she replies after a few long moments. “I can’t remember anything since… early morning, yesterday maybe.”

Root’s frown deepens, and her eyes flick to the side as she tries to remember, too.

“Me too. I can’t hear Her either.”

“I think we were drugged.”

Root nods, examining her forearms for needle marks.

“I’m gonna search the room,” Shaw says, but there’s not much to search. Besides the bedside tables, the room is bare. There is no desk, or TV, or alarm clocks, or remotes. She moves to stand up, but a hand on her shoulder stops her in her tracks. Root’s hand is searing hot, even through Shaw’s t-shirt, and as Shaw tries to turn the splayed hand tightens and holds her in place as the mattress shifts. Root kneels behind her.

“There’s something on your neck,” Root says. Shaw can feel the words against the back of her neck as much as she hears them, and where Root’s hot breath tracks across her skin it erupts in goosebumps. Root delicately pushes Shaw’s loose ponytail to one side and runs a finger over the vertebrae at the base of her neck. “This could be where you were injected.”

“Into the spine?” Shaw wonders aloud. She’s not familiar with anything like that.

“Check me,” Root prompts, moving to sit beside Shaw at the edge of the bed and turning to face away from her.

 

Shaw moves Root’s hair over her shoulder, trying to keep the movement as clinical as possible, but she can’t help but breathe in the familiar scent of Root’s shampoo. Root’s skin is pale and warm, and delicate looking. Shaw leans in closer and notices a small red spot. The skin surrounding it is lightly pink, and when Shaw touches it, the mark is slightly raised. If this were a needle, it must have been a small one, far smaller than one would use in a spinal surgery. But this shared mark between them is too suspicious to be anything but an injection site.

 

Shaw pulls away, and when Root turns back, it brings their faces closer together than Shaw anticipated. She looks at Root’s eyes, which are dark and dilated. Root’s mouth is pink, and slightly parted. Root licks them, and the bolt of heat that runs through Shaw’s body at the sight of Root’s tongue is visceral enough that she jerks away, standing up.

 

“I’m going to search the room,” Shaw repeats.

 

She starts at the door, which is locked. There’s a deadbolt, but when Shaw peers through the gap between the door and doorframe she can see additional bolts locking them in place, which must only be accessible from the other side. Not good news. She doubts there’s anything that can be used as a tension wrench if she’s to attempt to pick the locks.

“We’re locked in, at least for awhile,” Shaw turns to look at Root, to find the woman watching her intently from where she is sitting on the bed.

Shaw tries to think of ways to improvise a lock pick, but it’s hard to think. Whatever they drugged her with has really messed with her.

 

But it’s not just that. It’s not just a haziness in her head. Because when Shaw looks at Root, there is no haze at all. There is a clear, sharp focus, like the scope of a sniper rifle. When she looks away it’s almost like her eyes are drawn back to her, beyond her own control. It feels gravitational.

 

She doesn’t want to ask, but she thinks Root is feeling the same way. When Shaw does manage to look elsewhere she can almost feel the way Root is looking at her, her eyes scanning Shaw like Root’s memorizing her. It’s that same focused look as when they were sitting side by side on the bed, when Shaw was a moment away from leaning in to kiss her, and Shaw’s hand twitches with the memory of Root’s soft, warm skin, and the way Root leaned into her touch.

 

“I’m going to search the bathroom,” Shaw declares, and tries not to look like she’s running away as she hurries inside, closing the door behind her. It’s unnecessary but she wants that space between them to catch her breath. The bathroom cupboards are unsurprisingly empty save for individually wrapped toothbrushes, times two, and a travel-size toothpaste. They are plastic, and Shaw decides to sharpen them to a shiv later.

 

The light switch automatically turns on an extractor fan above the shower, which is plastic, white, and clean. There is a small wrapped bar of soap but nothing else. She runs her hands over the walls, feeling nothing but cold tile, but above the mirror is a vent. When Shaw holds her hand beneath it, she can feel air, but it feels different. She rubs her fingers together and they feel almost sticky. Whatever it is has a faint chemical smell, and she touches her tongue to her finger a bolt shoots through her. It’s like she can feel the ridges of her fingerprint with the tip of her tongue. A shiver runs down her spine, and dread curls in her stomach. They’re pumping something into the air, and Shaw’s been breathing it for hours.

 

Heart racing, she fumbles with the door to go back into the bedroom, to see Root balancing on the bed. She is crouching beneath the fan that slowly oscillates above the centre of the bed, trying to wrap what looks like a pillowcase around it.

“There’s a camera,” Root explains. “I’ve only found this one but I assume there’s others. Did you find anything?”

“An airborne drug, in the vents,” Shaw replies, scanning the ceiling for more. There’s only one, a foot long, between the bed and the door. “We need to cover them, try block it.”

Root nods, stripping another pillowcase from one of the pillows on the bed and stepping down off the bed to hand it to her. Shaw reaches up to shove it into the vent, but it’s too high. She sighs impatiently, and climbs on the bed, stretching over, her other hand bracing herself on the ceiling.

“Here,” Root says, moving to brace Shaw with a hand on her ribs. Shaw frowns, concentrating, shoving the fabric between the grates of the vent. Without any tape, the pillowcase does not seal it completely. The thin cotton waves slightly around the edges. But it’s better than nothing. Soon enough they’ll have metabolized whatever dosage they’ve received, and then the lower dose from there on should keep them a little ahead of whoever is imprisoning them expects.

Shaw steps down off the bed, ending up right inside Root’s personal space, with Root’s hand still pressed against her side. Root’s gaze is heavy, heady.

“Do you…” Shaw starts, but trails off. _Feel this too_ , she thinks.

“Yes,” Root breathes, and Shaw catches the word on her lips in a kiss.

 

There is barely a split second before Root moves, the hand on Shaw’s side sliding around her back to pull their bodies closer together, Root’s lips moving across hers, pulling at her bottom lip. Root’s mouth is hot and wet, and Shaw is too eager. It’s messy. Someone is groaning, and Shaw absently realizes it’s her. She tries to slow a little but she is overwhelmed. Her heart is racing, and her hands can’t stop moving, tugging fruitlessly at Root’s clothes, trying to get at her bare skin. Their teeth knock together, and Root’s hands move to frame her face, stroking her thumbs over Shaw’s cheeks, soothing. It is only Root’s gentle hands on her face that stop Shaw chasing her mouth as Root pulls away.

 

“Sameen,” Root says, and Shaw is gratified to see the flush on her cheeks and hear the breathlessness in her voice. “Sam, we shouldn’t. It’s just the drug.”

Shaw feels a wave of frustration shoot through her. It’s not just the drug. It’s Root, and she doesn’t want to stop. But she nods, anyway, and steps back a little. Where Root’s hands have been, her skin feels cold.

“Right,” Shaw says. Her voice is lower than normal and rough, but she doesn’t want to clear her throat. “We should find those other cameras.”

 

They search opposite sides of the room, but Shaw keeps finding excuses to look at Root. Root runs her hands over the walls, her shirt lifting up, and Shaw can’t take her eyes off the sliver of skin above Root’s jeans, and the dimples at the small of her back. Shaw can feel herself flushing. Her skin feels hot and her heart is racing, and she is overwhelmed with lust. She has to close her eyes to try force out the image of what it would be like to cross the room and slam Root against the wall.

She feels Root in front of her before she opens her eyes to see Root standing in front of her, her face concerned, hands hovering awkwardly and reaching slowly towards her.

“Don’t,” Shaw warns. “Don’t touch me.”

Root flinches, but Shaw doesn’t feel bad. It’d be breaking a dam for them to touch again, and Shaw needs space between them and for the drug in her system to be metabolized. She hopes desperately that whatever this drug is, the half-life on it is short, because it’s agony, being trapped in a room like this with the woman she craves.

 

They find another camera and Shaw covers it while Root hovers, trying to assist but distracting Shaw more than anything else. Shaw can bring herself to do little other than snap at her and try to maintain a space between them. There is a soft look to Root’s face and Shaw thinks it might be pity: that Root feels bad for rejecting her, and the thought is infuriating. She hates that Root has more self-control than she does. Shaw is a soldier, a weapon, but it was Root who saw more clearly that neither of them could afford to distract themselves like that and stopped them, not Shaw.

 

It would help, Shaw thinks bitterly, if Root was lording it over her. If she were gloating that Shaw wants her so much that she threw herself at Root and was too turned on to kiss her with any finesse. She remembers, vaguely, that Root was gasping too, that Shaw’s hands could get no purchase on Root’s clothes because Root was holding their bodies so tightly together. Root’s eyes had been dark with lust, and her cheeks held spots of red, but Shaw pushes these to the side because it’s easier to be angry if she imagines Root mocking her or pitying her, and Shaw is familiar with anger. That she knows how to feel, how to process.

 

“Now what?” Root asks, settling herself back on the bed. She crosses her legs and smirks at Shaw, who grimaces. “Shall we find some way to pass the time?”

Root’s eyes run over Shaw’s body, lingering at Shaw’s hips and breasts. Shaw feels that attraction burning within her again, burrowing through her anger and replacing it, and she can’t bear it.

“Improvise a weapon,” Shaw replies, voice gruff. “I’m going to sharpen some toothbrushes.”

 

Shaw shuts herself in the bathroom again, and closes the door. She leans herself against the wall and sinks to the floor. She takes steadying breaths and for a minute, it works.

 

And then her mind betrays her and she remembers for a second Root’s dilated pupils; her shallow breaths; the little moan Shaw heard when she’d bit Root’s lips. She wonders what Root is doing, wonders if she’s stuck replaying their kiss in her head over and over like Shaw can’t help but do.

 

Shaw tenses the muscles in her legs, and finally lets herself acknowledge the want pooling there, the wetness that’s been building since Root touched her, when she could feel Root’s breath on her neck, when Root steadied her, when Root’s chest heaved against hers, when she felt Root’s tongue in her mouth, when her fingers dug into Shaw’s skin.

 

She thinks of Root, asleep beside her, looking fragile and beautiful. She thinks of the dark look in Root’s eyes. How it felt to brush her hair off her neck. How soft Root’s skin is, how pale, her narrow waist and the skin that Shaw’s never seen and wants to see, wants to touch and scratch and lick, wants to mark. How pretty it would look with streaks of red from Shaw’s fingernails.

 

Shaw thinks that it wouldn’t take much to mark that skin. She could press her thumb against the pulse point in Root’s neck until she’s dizzy and lightheaded and Root would love it. It’d probably leave a bruise and Root would swan around in low cut tops shamelessly until it faded, and Shaw could look at her and the bruise that she left and for all Root’s showing off it would be a secret between them. That Root could disappear for another week and when she came back it’d be a yellow shadow and Shaw could make it blue again, could bite hickeys on Root’s inner thighs and have Root wrap them around Shaw’s head as she buries her face in Root’s cunt. And Root could leave again and look at the constellation of Shaw across her, the map of Shaw fucking her that she left on her skin, and Root could touch herself and remember, and maybe call Shaw, and they could bury their fingers in themselves and hear the other panting in their ear –

 

Shaw gasps, opening her eyes. One of her hands is between her legs, pressing unsatisfactorily at herself through her tight jeans, and the other plays at her lips. She thinks maybe she should do it, maybe if she makes herself come the tension would dissipate and she could feel normal again. She’s about thirty seconds of actual effort away from coming, her body is thrumming with it, and she hesitates for only a moment before she unbuttons her jeans and pushes them down just enough. She grabs at her breast roughly and then shoves two fingers into herself. She’s so wet, she’s clenching down on her fingers right away, and she can feel her slickness dripping down her fingers. Her other hand comes to rub at her clit, and she can feel the impatience of her imminent orgasm curling within her. Shaw lets herself wonder if Root knows what’s doing, if Root is pressed against the bathroom door and listening to the wet sounds of Shaw’s hand between her legs, the groans she’s biting back. Maybe Root is standing there and touching herself too, and the only thing between them is the bathroom door, and Shaw’s muscles tense and her head drops forward and she’s coming.

 

She steadies her breathing and lets her head drop back against the wall, but the tension that dropped out of her body with her orgasm rushes back like it never left. She swears under her breath and as Shaw tidies herself and stands up, she makes up her mind.

 

She and Root are just going to have to work together on this one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay getting this out, I forgot how busy I am during the week.

Shaw looks at herself in the mirror. She looks debauched: cheeks and chest flushed, hair messy. She undoes her ponytail and tidies her hair a little, runs the tap and pats water on her cheeks. She rinses her hands but she can still smell herself on her fingers, and she likes it. She thinks maybe she’ll make Root lick them so she can taste what Shaw was doing.

 

In the room, Root is sitting on the bed, shoes off, and Shaw startles her enough as she comes out of the bathroom that Root freezes in the middle of plaiting her hair. Shaw stands across from her and watches Root’s hair unweave itself, and she steps forward silently to wind her fingers in Root’s hair. She teases the strands apart, and her damp fingers catch and tug. Root hisses, quietly, and Shaw pulls a little harder, grabs a handful of hair and manipulates Root to stand up in front of her.

 

“This isn’t-” Root starts, but Shaw’s hand palms over her breast and the rest of Root’s sentence falls away to a shallow, hitched gasp. Root bats her hand away, looking pained.

“This is just the drugs.”

“So?”

Even though it’s not, not entirely.

 

Shaw reaches for her again, and Root steps back, trying to keep a space between them.

“We’re not in control.”

Shaw steps towards her, closing the gap between them. Her hands settle on Root’s hips. “I don’t care. This feels good. I want to feel good. Don’t you?”

“God, Sam,” Root gasps, like she can’t help it. “Sam,” Root says again. Her voice is pleading.

Shaw reaches up to kiss her, and when their lips touch, Root’s hands between them, once a barrier, grip at Shaw’s shoulders and pull their bodies closer together. Root’s mouth is bruising, her kisses hard and deliberate, her fingers digging in to Shaw’s shoulders so hard it hurts.

But again, Root breaks the kiss. “Wait,” she gasps. Her cheeks are flushed, and her breaths are shallow and fast. “This isn’t how I wanted it.”

A dozen things rush through Shaw’s head but she can only grab onto one. “How did you want it?”

“Shaw,” says Root. Her voice is low, chiding, maybe disappointed. Shaw hates it. She want Root to call her Sam again, wants to hear that desperate tone in her voice.

“No,” says Shaw. “Tell me how you wanted it. What did you imagine?”

“Us sober,” Root replies quickly. “You making a move on me. A planned one.”

“How much have you thought about it?”

Root huffs, rolls her eyes because she knows what Shaw’s doing. But one of her hands moves from Shaw’s shoulder to play with her hair. The thumb of her other hand rubs over where it dug in moments before. Shaw thinks it’s meant to be soothing, but it’s electrifying. It feels hot and cold at once, and where Root’s skin touches hers the sensation shoots across her skin and down her spine.

 

  
It’s hard to keep eye contact because Shaw wants to close them to focus on that one point where Root and her touch, but she forces herself to hold it, and she sees Root’s resolution slide away.

“A lot,” Root admits, low and sultry, and Shaw can’t help but press their mouths together. Shaw licks at Root’s mouth, but pulls away.

“Tell me,” Shaw prompts. Her hands tug at the bottom of Root’s top and slide under and upwards, running over Root’s hot skin, trying to touch it all.

Root’s voice is uneven, and she stutters. “I think about kissing you.”

“And,” Shaw brushes their lips together.

“Taking your clothes off,” Root continues, fingers playing with the top of Shaw’s jeans. “Tying you up. And teasing you til you beg.”

“I don’t beg.”

“I’m sure I’d enjoy trying anyway.”

“Do you want to know what I was doing in the bathroom?” Shaw asks. “I was thinking about you.”

“Thinking what?”

“About taking your clothes off and marking you.”

 

Shaw punctuates the sentence with a hard tug at Root’s top, and they step away from each other just enough for Root to pull it over her head, quickly and clumsily, leaving her hair a little messy.

 

Shaw spreads her hands across Root’s chest, over her plain black bra and hot pale skin. She traces the delicate bones across Root’s chest and ribs, and presses her palm over Root’s heart and feels it hammering under her touch. But when Shaw presses her fingertips into Root’s flesh she can feel her own pulse thrumming, too.

 

Root moves to undress Shaw but her hands forget what they’re doing when Shaw leans forward to scrape her teeth against Root’s neck. Her skin tastes of sweat and Shaw is enveloped in the scent of her hair, the smell she’s known for months and months since the first time Root stepped into her personal space like it was nothing at all. Shaw can pick it from across a room. She can stand four feet away from Root in a cosmetics department stifling with saccharine perfumes and still catalogue its presence even as the rest of Root changes. That, and the way that Root looks at her, and the way she makes four feet three, then two, are the constants she can rely on.

 

Root leans into Shaw even as Shaw nips at her and scrapes her fingers down her back. She was right: Root’s skin is like an etch-a-sketch of Shaw’s touch. After a few minutes it’s a heat map of the areas that Root seemed to like best, where her breath hitched when Root licked there, where her fingers dug in to Shaw’s hips when Shaw was rougher.

 

Shaw’s eyes meet Root’s when her fingers pause at the clasp of Root’s bra, and Root’s mouth pulls a lopsided smile. Shaw slides the straps off her shoulders, chasing the skin she reveals with her teeth and tongue. Root swears under her breath when Shaw takes a nipple between her teeth, and she almost moans herself in response. She wants to hear every noise Root is holding back. She loves the way Root’s breath hitches, each ragged breath sends a volt of heat through her.

 

“What do you want me to do,” Shaw asks. Root’s starts to unbutton Shaw’s pants but Shaw bats her hands away. “No, tell me.”

“I want to fuck you,” Root says, voice uneven, burying her head in the curve of Shaw’s shoulder.

“No. What do you want me to do to you.”

Root turns and pushes Shaw onto the bed, pinning her down with their legs intertwined. Shaw grabs at Root’s ass so her thigh presses between Shaw’s legs, and she can’t help but arch her back at the friction. Root kisses her neck and thrusts her thigh between Shaw’s, and Shaw lets her for a moment but it’s not enough, and she wants Root to answer her question. She flips them deftly, straddling Root’s hips and leans a hand either side of her to lower her body over Root’s.

She leans into Root’s good ear and whispers, “You’ve thought about it, right? Tell me what you want me to do.”

Root trembles beneath her. “Touch me.”

“Where?”

“Sameen,” Root whispers, and her voice is pleading. Shaw looks at her and shakes her head. “I want – I want your fingers in me.”

Shaw undoes Root’s jeans efficiently, climbing off Root and standing to tug Root’s pants and underwear off and drop them to the floor. Root’s knees fall away to welcome Shaw between them, and Shaw lingers for a second to look at Root, glistening and wet and waiting for her, but instead she lays down beside her.

 

She wastes no time in sliding two fingers into Root. “See?” she says, propping herself on her other arm so she can see how Root undulates under her touch, how her legs stretch and tense against the bed. “That wasn’t so hard.”

Root tries to thrust her hips up but Shaw quickens her fingers and Root sinks back into the bed, whimpering. “You know,” Shaw says, “I was doing this to myself ten minutes ago.”

Root arches up beneath her desperately, pulls Shaw’s mouth to hers and kisses her fiercely. Shaw brushes her thumb across Root’s clit and curls her fingers and Root breaks the kiss, gasping. They breathe into each others’ mouths, Root’s hand pulling ferociously at Shaw’s hair.

“Do you want to come?” Shaw asks.

“Yes. Sameen. Yes, ” Root pleads. Shaw’s hand is insistent, and she bites down at Root’s neck, her leg slung across Root’s and holding her in place while she trembles and whimpers beneath her. She watches Root's face as she fucks her, keeping her pace fast and relentless. Shaw sucks at her earlobe and breathes hotly into the shell of Root’s ear and whispers, “Do it,” and Root comes, Shaw’s fingers insistent inside her as she clenches down hard, muscles fluttering in spasm until Root bats her hand away and sinks back into the mattress, flushed and sweating and panting.

 

Shaw trails her hand up Root’s body, skimming her callused fingers over Root’s breasts who gasps in response, torn between shrinking away and leaning into the touch, her sensitized skin like raw nerve endings.

 

Shaw lets herself be pulled against Root, placing her hand gently on the sweat-slick skin of Root’s back as the other woman turns into her. She listens to Root’s breaths even out, as she catalogues her own body. Her shoulder is beginning to cramp, and she is sweating too, her shirt clinging to her back. Her own need is pulsing insistently between her legs, more urgent than before, and Shaw can be patient but right now she just needs to get off.

 

Root seems to notice, because even with her head still tucked in Shaw’s shoulder, her hand comes to lift up Shaw’s shirt, pushing it up to the strap of her bra and unfastening it easily. Shaw’s bra only gives a little but it is enough for Root to trap her fingers underneath and palm at Shaw’s breast, good but blunt and not nearly enough.

 

She wriggles, feeling blood rush painfully back into her numbing arm, wrestling off her shirt clumsily and moving to lie on her back. She pulls Root to her with a hand fisted in her hair at the base of the neck. Root’s hair is damp with sweat and she pulls Root’s mouth to her breast roughly, and hears a groan in response. Nevertheless Root licks at her nipple obediently, sending a shock of heat to Shaw’s core, and without prompting Root bites it, just hard enough that the pain clears Shaw’s lust-fogged mind.

 

Root’s other hand circles her other nipple and Shaw closes her eyes as she feels Root settle over her, a bare thigh pressing perfectly between hers. Root switches to lick her other nipple but Shaw pushes her away so she can shuck off her jeans and underwear, and a flash of annoyance crosses Root’s otherwise smug face.

“I wanted to do that,” she protests, and Shaw shrugs.

“You were taking too long.”

“No, no, sweetie,” Root simpers. “That isn’t how this is going to go.”

 

Root straddles her, pulling Shaw’s hands from where they’ve come to touch Root’s body and lifting them over her head to the headboard. Shaw’s eyes dart between Root’s breasts, now inches from Shaw’s face, and the sight of their intertwined fingers on the board. Root sits back to sit across Shaw’s hips and Shaw keeps her hands on the headboard obediently.

“They stay there,” Root instructs, pointing unnecessarily. “Or I stop.”

 

Shaw growls, but she can’t help the thrill that runs down her spine. Without anything holding her hands in place, there’s no challenge to beat to get free. She could pin Root easily, and turn the tables in a second, but she knows that Root still has the upper hand. If she wants Root to fuck her, and she desperately, desperately does, more than she’s wanted anyone else, so much in this moment it’s hard to think of anything else, then Shaw will need to behave.

 

The idea that Root is probably going to tease her, to try get Shaw to beg, is as infuriating as it is exciting. She won’t beg, she won’t, but this orgasm is going to be hard won and excruciating and she can feel herself get wetter at the thought. She lets her agreement play at her features and Root breaks into a grin, the same one from when Shaw was ziptied to a chair and Root threatened her with an iron.

“Good,” Root murmurs, and settles over Shaw. She places a thigh between Shaw’s, barely pressing down on her at all, and Shaw watches Root react at Shaw’s slick arousal against her thigh.

“Well well,” Root says, the grin splitting even wider. She settles onto her side and trails a finger down Shaw’s body, feather light, to stroke at Shaw’s labia. Shaw has to bite her lip to keep silent and Root sinks a finger easily into her. Root pulls her finger out and marvels at how wet Shaw is.

“Oh, did you want me to keep going?”

Shaw keeps silent, pulling her lips into her mouth and biting them both.

“No? Very well then.”

 

Root shifts back into place and leans to lick at Shaw’s ear. Her tongue dips into the whorl of her ear and then she bites at Shaw’s earlobe, and Shaw digs her fingers the headboard. Root’s hand touches her jaw gently to tilt Shaw’s head to the side so she can bite at her neck. She is meticulous, sucking and biting and running a fingernail over each inch of Shaw’s neck, and just as it starts to get too much, and her overwhelmed nerves begin to shift to a dull, unpleasant pain, Root lavishes her attention somewhere new. By the time Root has skipped over her breasts to kiss at Shaw’s stomach, Shaw has lost control of her breathing. Her breath hitches when Root discovers somewhere good, and Root examines it, testing out how hard Shaw likes it bitten or sucked or if she likes it best when Root kisses gently with only a nip of her teeth. She’s being catalogued, and Root is unsurprisingly thorough and attentive, and Shaw regrets that she didn’t spend this same time on Root’s body. She doesn’t even know what Root tastes like, and she wants to, and the words are nearly out of her mouth before she manages to stop them.

 

Root discovers how Shaw likes hickeys sucked into the skin over her hipbones, and if it were not for Root straddling her legs Shaw would probably be writhing on the bed. Root licks at the seam of her thigh and noses at Shaw’s pubic hair and she is so close, so close Shaw can feel her warm little breaths against where she wants Root’s mouth most, and Root skips down to bite at Shaw’s thighs. She just about pulls her hands away from the headboard but Root looks up at her then, challenging, and Shaw lets her head fall back as she concentrates on breathing in through her nose, trying to ignore the stubborn throbbing between her legs.

 

Her heart races as Root spreads Shaw’s legs apart, but Root just looks at her again before turning to bite at Shaw’s other thigh. Root keeps looking up at her, waiting for her to say something or take her hands away, but Shaw resists. Dissatisfied, Root leans up a little, propping herself on her elbow by Shaw’s hips, her breasts pressed against Shaw’s thigh, and Shaw feels pride at her own resistance. Root’s hand comes to stroke up Shaw’s labia, and she dips a finger inside Shaw, pressing in and out slowly. Shaw can’t help but clench down around it.

 

“There we go,” Root murmurs. “Is this what you want?”

Shaw closes her eyes and says nothing, but Root keeps going, and they both lie in silence, listening to the wet slick noises of Root’s finger inside her and the shallow breaths Shaw tries to keep even. She opens her eyes when Root pulls away and shifts, and Root holds her gaze as she settles between Shaw’s legs, delicately arranging herself and tucking her hair behind her ears so it runs down her back. Shaw is transfixed. Root’s fingers gently pull Shaw’s outer lips apart and then she lowers her head and licks a stripe upwards, circling Shaw’s clit with her tongue excruciatingly softly and pulling away. Root’s tongue then licks at her entrance, dipping her tongue in while her fingers massage at the tension in Shaw’s thighs. She repeats her actions a couple of times and then pulls away to look up at Shaw.

“I know what you want, Sameen.”

 

Then Root drops her head again and sucks at Shaw’s clit as she slips two fingers into her. Her fingers are fast and hard and her tongue is exquisite, and it is so overwhelmingly too much and just right that Shaw can’t help but arch her back and moan Root’s name, and Root just moves a hand to Shaw’s stomach and keeps going.

 

She can feel herself sweating where the cool air dries it against her skin. She can’t decide if she wants to keep her eyes closed or watch Root, whose face is serene, whose head is bent as if in prayer between Shaw’s legs.

 

Shaw lifts her hips off the bed, desperate, knowing that if she takes her hands off the headboard Root will stop, and Shaw needs her to do anything but stop. She wants to ask for more, for Root to keep going, to let her know she’s nearly there, but Shaw doesn’t want to beg, or hear what her voice has been reduced to. She can hear her own heavy breathing, and how when Root’s tongue works in tandem with her fingers to send ecstasy through her, Shaw’s panting breaks into a keening noise at the end. She can hear it, but it feels otherworldly. Shaw feels disconnected from it, and the way her body writhes. The tension in her muscles as she holds the headboard is a dull pain that just sits at the edge of her awareness, as is Root’s left hand across her stomach, holding her in place. All Shaw is aware of is her orgasm building within her, and a rushing white noise in her ears like a waterfall. She forces her eyes open to look down at Root, bent elegantly between Shaw’s legs, her eyes closed and frowning in concentration as she brings Shaw right to the edge and Shaw’s eyes slam shut as her orgasm tears through her.

 

By the time Shaw opens her eyes, Root is lying alongside her, stretching her arms and legs out with a self-satisfied grin on her face. Even though Shaw feels hollowed out and blissful and satiated, she can’t help herself as she looks at Root’s breasts as she arches her back, how her ribcage expands and hollows out her stomach. Root hums when she sees Shaw’s stare, and Shaw huffs and pulls her gaze away.

 

She looks up at the fan above them, its pillowcase cover wobbling as the fan continues to rotate, and feels her pulse thrumming in her neck gradually slow as her breaths even.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, this took two months to get around to posting. I had nearly all of it written and then my whole life became my awful job, and the few spare days I've had off I spent in the wilderness. I'm so sorry.

For a few slow minutes, Shaw relaxes. The tension that has sat in her spine since she woke up in the motel room has finally dissipated. It made her want to fidget, and it made her feel trapped, and now that it’s gone she feels like she could sink into the bed and not move for hours. But the uneasiness returns, and the sweat dries on her body, and she feels uncomfortable.

 

She mumbles something about showering before climbing out of bed. Root’s suggestion that she joins her is token and muffled by a pillow, and when Shaw throws another look in her direction before closing the door, Root has sprawled into the warm empty space Shaw has left behind. Her limbs are stretched across the width of the bed, and Shaw rolls her eyes.

 

She runs the shower hot and leans against the wall with her eyes closed until the tension builds up again and she washes herself with the little bar of soap. As she runs it over her body, she catalogues the marks Root has left on her. The hickeys on her hips and thighs are violently dark, mottled ovals of burst capillaries. She presses at them and tries to decide how she feels about them. Not annoyed, necessarily, even though there’s something possessive about hickeys she doesn’t usually like. But these ones are more discretely located, and she’ll probably never be asked about them. She wonders if Root will want to see them before they fade, and then tries to stop that thought by knocking her head back against the wall.

 

She dries off with a coarse towel and by the time she has dressed, Root has pulled the blankets from beneath her, only her head and hands visible. Except for their scattered clothes on the floor, Shaw wouldn’t know that she’s naked. Good, Shaw thinks. She picks up Root’s clothes and puts them on the bedside table and in the space on the floor at the foot of the bed, she starts to do push ups. She gets hot quickly again in jeans and so she does short sets: ten diamonds, and then sits back against the foot of the bed, ten with her hands as wide as she can balance, another rest, rotating through all the variations she knows until her chest and arms burn and she is sweating. She stretches then, and does some mobility exercises, rotating her joints. She has a lot of injuries that she’s never had the time to let heal properly and there’s a resistance to movement in some of her joints that she usually ignores. Sometimes, she’ll get out a foam roller and work at her muscles until her eyes burn with tears. But there’s nothing like that here, and so she just stretches, slow but dynamic movements, wanting to keep her body strong and ready in case something happens.

 

But nothing happens.

 

Time passes so slowly. She thinks for a minute about waking Root up, because even if she’s infuriating at least she’s never boring, but sleeping in shifts is a good system.

 

She searches the room another couple times, and then sits back against the foot of the bed, facing the door, and like before she can’t help her thoughts go back to Root. Did she really just assume before that they will do this again?

 

But Shaw can’t really come up with a good reason why they shouldn’t. It was good, crucially, certainly better than Shaw’s had in a long time. In another circumstance, outside this motel room, there’s other things she’d like to do to Root, and have Root do to her. Root’s flirtatious asides about tying her up and hurting her seem a bit more sincere now, and that current has been between them since the day they met. It might have been the only genuine thing: all those lies and façades, but Shaw meant it when she said she liked it, and Root meant it too.

 

She remembers, feeling her pulse quicken at the memory, the way Root knew just how much teasing Shaw could take before she needed more, even when she was too stubborn to say anything. She could probably be gagged and Root would know how to read her, and she lets her mind wander for awhile at the possibilities.

 

How much would things change? Root still has her missions, after all, and turns up erratically and without warning in New York. Shaw’s long suspected she sleeps at the subway when the Machine isn’t able to help her, and that’s more and more frequently these days than Root has admitted to anyone. Could it simply mean that when they’re both in the same city, on the off chance that they have a few spare moments, they could let off a little steam together? Root may intentionally try to irritate Shaw for her own entertainment, but she is at least never, ever boring.

 

She rolls her eyes, and does another set of pushups now she’s cooled down a little. It keeps her mind occupied for awhile, thinking about form, counting, concentrating on the effort. Then her mind drifts back to Root again, and she wakes Root up, shaking her shoulders roughly and saying her name loudly near her good ear.

 

To her credit, Root wakes up quickly, throwing the covers back and looking around wildly as she sits up.

“What?”

“Time to swap,” Shaw says. “My turn to sleep. Come on, let’s go.”

 

Root’s answer is the tilt of her shoulders as she climbs out of bed. It makes a hollow between her collarbone and shoulder where the shadow pools. It is seductive and entirely transient, Shaw thinks, just like Root. She turns around then to stride to the other side of the bed, looking at her hands as she pulls back the covers and gets into the bed herself, turning her back to Root. Shaw doesn’t watch Root dress, but the thick rustle of fabric narrates the process and Shaw fills in the blanks despite herself. She looks at the wall and pictures Root fastening her bra and adjusting the cups. She closes her eyes and imagines Root pulling on her jeans. She hears the zipper. Shaw’s not certain if Root is watching her or not. She pulls the covers up and curls her shoulders inwards. The bed smells like sex and Root. There is a residual warmth from Root’s body clinging to the coarse cotton sheets. It is cloyingly intimate, and Shaw closes her eyes tighter. She has slept through worse than this. She sleeps.

 

When she wakes, it is to the prickle of goosebumps on her back, and the knowledge that there is something wrong. It’s a sensation that wakes her often. It’s useful as often as it is unhelpful. It’s woken her at the cusp of something happening but she’s also spent weeks in a cell with nothing but food pushed through a flap at irregular intervals and she felt it then, too: prompted by nothing but a general sense of unease that’s been her life for longer than she’s bothered keeping track of.

 

Then there is a shift on the mattress, and she bolts awake, rolling over and pinning the intruder against the bed before she can even see who it is.

 

It’s Root. She arches an eyebrow and her eyes flick down to where Shaw’s body is pressed against hers, their hips aligned, and Shaw’s legs pinning her in place. Shaw’s forearm is a bar across Root’s neck, and she leans her weight into it a little until the smirk slides off Root’s face and she coughs in protest.

 

“I thought you were keeping watch,” Shaw says, levelly.

“I got bored. No Machine, no computer, no phone, no TV. What’s a girl to do?”

“You’ve never been in solitary confinement?”

“What can I say Sameen, I’m a good girl,” Root smirks.

 

Shaw rolls her eyes, because she suspects that has never, ever been true. Root, Shaw thinks, is entirely too smart for her own good, and probably has been causing trouble to entertain herself her whole life. Awhlie ago, she tried to poke around in Root’s past a little, but her records were all neatly sanitized.

 

Root lifts her hips up off the bed a little, as if testing how firmly Shaw has her pinned in place, and Shaw realizes sharply how closely their bodies are pressed together. The pragmatic part of her that responds to threats and treats wounds has no concept of a body other than its objective parts, but as Root’s breasts brush against hers and their hips press together, that part of her vanishes so completely it’s like it never existed. It takes her breath with her. Root lifts her chin, eyes dark, and their mouths are bare inches apart, and Shaw can feel Root’s shallow breath on her lips. She still has Root pinned entirely, immobile beneath her, waiting for Shaw to decide what to do.

 

Shaw pulls back, releasing Root and retreating back to her side of the bed, but Root chases her, grabbing at Shaw’s shoulder and crashing their mouths together. Shaw lets the momentum tumble her back against the bed.

 

But as soon as Root’s body frames hers, she moves her hand from Shaw’s shoulder to brush Shaw’s hair from her face, and the kiss becomes a gentle, tender thing. Their lips move together, Root sucking only gently at Shaw’s lower lip, and Shaw knows this kiss. This is how her one-night stands kiss her when they’ve misunderstood Shaw’s intentions. This is how they kiss her when they’re done fucking and they think Shaw’s going to cuddle up beside them. It’s the indolent, indulgent type of kissing that doesn’t go anywhere, and it makes Shaw wriggle with uneasiness, and she pushes Root away. Root withdraws, smiling, and moves to duck her head to kiss Shaw again, and Shaw has to push her harder. The smile falls from Root’s face and Shaw feels a flush of annoyance. Root has feelings for her, and Shaw knew that, and now Shaw’s misled her. She resents the sense of responsibility that she feels, and the conversation she’s going to have to have now. Root’s probably going to look at her with sad doe-eyes for a few weeks until she gets over it. This was a mistake. This is why she and Root hadn’t done this before.

 

“That’s not what this is,” she says meticulously.

“What isn’t?”

“It didn’t mean anything.”

“I know, sweetie,” Root says, in that infuriating lilting tone of hers. “So can’t we do it again?”

 

Shaw hesitates. She wants to say yes. Root is a grown up, she thinks, and if she lets her feelings get hurt that’s Root’s fault, not hers. Right? And the sex was good, and they probably share some predilections they haven’t yet had time to explore. Ones that Shaw doesn’t get to explore that often, because most one-night stands are only up for pretty standard vanilla sex, and balk at anything beyond handcuffs.

 

“Fine,” Shaw relents, tilting her head up to kiss Root before she can see the other woman’s reaction. She wraps an arm around Root to press them together tightly, and as Root compliantly opens her mouth for Shaw’s tongue, Shaw concentrates on nothing else but the feel of their bodies together. They kiss with a growing familiarity, a rhythm to the way they breathe and nip and bite at each other’s mouths, and her mind empties itself pleasingly.

 

The next time Shaw wakes up, she is in her own bed.


	4. Chapter 4

Perhaps predictably, Root is conveniently missing yet accounted for in the days following hers and Shaw’s mysterious reappearance. It leaves the burden of explaining what happened to them both entirely on Shaw, who readily accounts the larger picture: the drugging, the surveillance, the large gaps in her memory, and omits the large portion of what was apparently only 48 hours that she and Root spent fucking. It is always better, or course, to lie using as much of the truth as possible. 

 

John looks at her carefully and asks how she spent that time when she was awake, and Shaw just shrugs.

“Pushups, and sleeping in shifts,” she says, holding his suspicious gaze confidently until he looks away.

 

She can feel the soreness in her chest and arms from her many sets of pushups, a nagging physical reminder when she lifts her arms or stretches, but she is just as constantly aware of the slowly fading bruises from Root’s fingers and mouth on the intimate parts of her body. She’s almost glad of them and the proof that it really happened, that it wasn’t some fever dream or induced hallucination, but over dresses for the weather to ensure they’re hidden, wearing a too-large hoodie that covers the stretch of skin where her tanks can ride up that would reveal a mottled bite mark which stretches over her hip.

 

Despite his reticence, Finch has little choice but to send Shaw back out on a number, although with clear instructions to check in regularly and return to rest if she feels any hangover from the drugging.

 

Shaw does her best to not think about Root, which works perfectly at first. The number is tedious and involves far more waiting around for something to happen than interesting things actually happening, but then she gets to shoot a couple guys and hear a couple retaliatory bullets thud into drywall a few yards away from where she’s crouched, and with her adrenaline pumping and her gun in her grip, it is one of those deeply satisfying moments that reminds her that yes, this is worth the build up, even if she isn’t allowed to fire at center mass. 

 

Throughout that whole process, Shaw doesn’t think of Root at all. By the time she leaves the subway, deliberating on which takeout to get, Shaw thinks she has this whole situation perfectly under control. She stops at her favourite Chinese joint, who start preparing her order as she walks in, the man at the counter waving his arm at her dismissively when she starts to tell him what she wants, and waits outside in the street, congratulating herself.

 

But then Shaw gets back to her apartment with celebratory takeout and beer, and finds herself entirely unable to think about anything other than Root.

 

She wonders what Root is doing. She wonders if Root’s safe. If she’s still flagrantly disregarding her own personal safety like she’s something disposable. Who she’s pissing off. Where she’s sleeping (if she’s sleeping). When she’ll be back, and what state she’ll be in when she is.

 

Shaw has no immediate, easy way to get in contact with Root. Root normally just turns up as she pleases on no particular schedule except the Machine’s, and Shaw’s long past trying to predict what that entails. Shaw had asked Harold, after she’d woken up back in her own place and gone to the subway. Harold had been vague and unconcerned, and Shaw had left it. But now, it’s kind of annoying her. If nothing else, she wanted to see what Root knew about it. She has literally nothing to go on to figure out what happened herself.

 

She wonders what Root would do if she were here, with Shaw. Be annoying, probably. Maybe she’d have something fun for them to go do together: people to shoot, things to steal. Perhaps she’d have some kind of information on their joint abduction and they could go investigate it.

 

But Root isn’t here.

 

-

 

Root arrives unannounced at Shaw’s apartment, adopting a coy pose when she knows Shaw is looking through the door. Shaw says nothing, but steps aside to let her through and raising an eyebrow when Root lets her gaze slowly track down Shaw’s body. Root lets them stand in the tension of that silence for a few long moments, before she smirks and asks, “Did you miss me?”

“Shut up,” Shaw replies, exasperated but not cruel, and she reaches to pull Root to her. 

 

Almost like a muscle memory, their mouths slide together, Root letting Shaw bite at her lips. Shaw winds her fingers into Root’s hair to align their mouths easily as she leans up on her toes. When Shaw pulls away, Root knows what she wants, dragging her teeth and tongue down Shaw’s neck, her fingers digging into Shaw’s ass and hip where she holds Shaw to her. Root is gentle with her, careful not to leave marks on Shaw’s neck, but Shaw wants more than that. She likes the solidity of Root’s hands on her, the warmth of Root against her through their layers of clothes but it’s not enough.

 

Without the lusty haze of whatever she’d been drugged with, Shaw’s thoughts are clear. She’s able to articulate in her mind exactly what she wants in a way she couldn’t in the motel. Instead of the desperate fog of wanting more, wanting everything, Shaw very specifically wants to peel Root out of her clothes, tumble them back onto her bed, and taste the healing bruises she knows she left on Root’s skin.

 

Shaw pushes gently at Root’s shoulders, and Root pulls away slowly, pressing a wet kiss to Shaw’s jaw and then her mouth. She can feel Root trying to meet her eyes but she busies herself pushing Root’s coat off her shoulders and tugging at the rest of her clothes. Root follows her lead, and as she undresses, Shaw does too.

 

Root is left in her bra and underwear, standing in a pile of her discarded clothes, and when Shaw looks up from kicking off her own jeans, Root is looking at her fondly, the smirk vanished from her face. Shaw rolls her eyes and fingers the strap of Root’s bra just about the swell of her breasts.

“This too,” she says, and snaps the strap against Root’s skin.

 

Root makes a hurt sound at the flick of her bra strap, but there is a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. This part, Shaw watches. As Root reaches to unfasten the clasp of her bra, Shaw looks at the lacuna of her collarbone and shoulder appear and disappear. There is a flush across the pale skin of Root’s chest, and as she drops her discarded bra to the floor Root’s nipples harden. Shaw doesn’t even try to match Root’s gaze as Root trails her fingers slowly over her hips and stomach. Root hooks her thumbs over the band of her underwear and tugs them down her long legs, and Shaw hums in approval.

 

Root, in turn, reaches for Shaw’s underwear, and Shaw lets her. She stands unnecessarily close, so when Root reaches to unclasp Shaw’s bra, she is almost engulfing her while barely touching her at all. Root pushes Shaw’s underwear to mid-thigh and Shaw shoves them the rest of the way and Root steps back, her fingers tracing the marks Root left on her skin. The hickeys along the line of her hipbones are still looking violent, and Root looks at them with a lopsided smirk of pride.

 

Root, though, is a blank canvas. Shaw had been too distracted to mark her properly; the moment she kissed or bit at one spot, she wanted another. She wants to correct that now, without the frantic urgency of that drug coursing through her system, and knowing that she could, if she wanted, do this again. That Root would be willing. And that, with that ‘Fine,’ in the motel, and the ‘Shut up’ in her apartment, they’ve come to some sort of understanding.

 

They move to Shaw’s bed, pushing pillows haphazardly onto the floor so the whole space is clear, but occupy only a sliver of tangled limbs in the middle. Root is slick against Shaw’s thigh. She pinches a nipple, just hard enough that Root flinches away for a moment, then reaches between Root’s legs. She runs a finger up Root’s labia, dragging the slickness with her so her finger glides easily over Root’s clit. Root breaks their kiss but catches Shaw’s bottom lip between her teeth, but she lets it go on a broken moan as Shaw catches her clit perfectly with the pad of her finger.

 

Shaw feels Root’s eyelashes flutter against her cheek as Root mirrors Shaw. She palms roughly at Shaw’s breasts, flicking Shaw’s nipples with her thumb, and when her hand comes to Shaw’s thighs she parts them eagerly. She turns her face into Root’s neck. Without the singular focus of that drug, Shaw notices the bodily way Root reacts to her. Sure, Root’s breathing quickens when Shaw pushes two fingers into her and fucks her hard. But when Root does the same to her, and Shaw’s own fingers stutter and she buries a moan against Root’s neck, she can feel Root clench down around her fingers.

 

She tests the theory: Root’s thumb circles at her clit expertly, and Shaw breaks her own rules to swear breathlessly, and in turn, Root grinds against Shaw’s hand. She smirks, and adds a third finger, finding Root’s mouth with her own and kissing her messily.

 

She gives up, pulling her fingers from Root, rubbing her two fingers together and marveling at the slickness. She offers them to Root who takes them obediently, greedily, into her mouth. The feel of it sends a bolt of heat to Shaw’s core. Shaw kisses her and tastes Root for the first time on her own tongue, unable to keep herself from moaning into it.

 

Shaw slides her wet fingers around the back of Root’s neck, the other woman making a noise of protest as they catch a little on her hair. She kisses her closed-mouth, apologetic, and slides her hand to Root’s shoulder blades, pressing them together. Root understands quickly, positioning herself so she can thrust into Shaw hard. Shaw’s breathing becomes ragged, her fingers biting in Root’s back, scoring scratches over her shoulders when Root’s fingers are so perfect inside her.

 

“Is that okay?” Shaw manages, and feels Root nod. Her hands on Root’s back anchor her as her orgasm builds quickly, but when she feels herself flush and her muscles clench and tremble, she pulls Root to her, her palms flat against the heated skin. She bites at Root’s shoulder, curling her body into Root above her and panting, and then her orgasm tears through her.

 

Shaw breathes a stuttered sigh when Root slides her fingers from her and collapses beside her, shoulder-to-shoulder. Shaw turns her head to grin wolfishly at her, “Give me a minute.”   
Root thumbs at her cheek in response, and impulsively, Shaw presses a kiss to her wrist, then pointedly looks up at the ceiling while she feels the weight of Root’s gaze on her face.

 

When her breath has evened, Shaw looks to where Root has arranged herself elegantly beside her, and jerks her head to the side. 

“Come on,” Shaw instructs. She guides Root to straddle her, running her hands up Root’s long legs to frame her hips when Root leans down to kiss her. Shaw kisses her back obligingly and Root pulls back with a questioning look when Shaw stops her a second time from deepening the kiss. Shaw pulls at Root’s hips, and sees Root’s recognition chased by a blush.

 

Without a headboard for her to brace herself on, Root balances on her knees. Shaw cradles Root’s thighs as she straddles her face, burying her face in Root’s folds. Root’s thighs shake as Shaw licks her, sucks at her clit, tongues her entrance, and Shaw grips her thighs tight. Root’s motions guide her, moving where she wants Shaw’s mouth. Root’s breath is rapid, breaking into little moans on each exhale, and her hands roam with distracted indecision. Shaw looks up to see Root pinch her own nipples, fist her hair in her hands, dig her fingers into her own thighs, then Shaw’s thighs, then Shaw’s hair. Root whimpers, and Shaw flips them, burying her face between Root’s legs just as quickly. Root’s surprised noise on her impact with the mattress becomes a long, breathy sigh. Shaw pushes two fingers in her, and they glide so easily: Root is so wet. She is close, too; Shaw knows from the tension in her muscles. Root is quiet when she comes, but her body shudders, and Shaw rolls with it, curling her fingers gently until Root pushes her away.

 

She wipes her mouth, her wet chin, and grins wolfishly at how Root lies boneless and fucked out on her bed.

 

Shaw leaves Root there and gets up to shower. She takes her time, washing herself in more leisurely a fashion than she usually would bother doing, shampooing her hair. She dries her hair, too, rubbing at it until the towel is wet to dry it anymore instead of letting her hair drip down her back.

 

Root is sitting at the edge of her bed when Shaw comes back in. She is bent over, dressed in her underwear, pulling at her jeans. Shaw’s nails have torn angry red streaks down her back, and there are dark marks blooming into bruises across her skin. She realizes she’s not even talked to Root. She doesn’t know where she’s been, what she’s been doing, for the better part of a week. Whatever it was, she suspects Root hasn’t been sleeping, or eating.

 

The war against Samaritan is rapidly becoming not a metaphorical, philosophical war, but a cold and brutal and entirely imminent reality. In that fight, Root is their best weapon, and Shaw feels about her a similar way that she’s had with anyone she’s fought alongside. There is a kinship there, and a concern for her wellbeing and health: if Root is exhausted, and has spent weeks without a decent meal or night’s sleep, then that will begin to compromise her. She knows from her medical career as well as her personal experience, from seeing the ego and bravado in her fellow Marines, and from pushing herself too hard past the point of exhaustion, that there are certain physical truths that no amount of determination can overcome, and as part of Root’s team, she wants to help.

 

“I’m going to get food,” Shaw tells her. Root jumps, startled. “What do you want?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least for now, I'm considering this finished. It's not really, but I can't see myself doing anything more with it. I have other ideas for stories, and less time than I thought I'd have. My apologies.


End file.
